This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Trisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Anthony Vezna Soe read his story,

Three Women of Chuck Stonuts, from the February 10th 2020 issue of the magazine.

So is an MFA candidate in fiction at Syracuse University.

His writing has appeared in N-plus-1, Granta and Ziziva.

Now here's Anthony Vizna So.

Three Women of Chuck's Donuts

The first night the man orders an apple fritter.

It is three in the morning, the street lamp is broken, and the nightly fog obscures the waterfront's rundown buildings,

except for Chuck's donuts with this cool

fluorescent glow. Isn't it a bit early from an apple fritter, the owner's 12-year-old daughter,

Kaylee, deadpants from the counter, and Tevi, four years older, rolls her eyes and says to

your sister, you watch too much TV. The man ignores them both, sits down at a

booth, and proceeds to stare out the window at the busted potential of his small city's downtown.

Kaylee studies a man's reflection in the window. He's older but not old, younger than her parents, and his wiry mustache seems

misplaced from a different decade. His face wears an expression full of those mixed-up

emotions that only adults must feel, like plaintive, say, or wretched. His light gray suit is

disheveled, his tie undone.

An hour passes.

Kaylee whispers to Tevi,

it looks like he's just staring at his own face,

...